Cool - but I'll believe it when I see it. Marketing slicks in pinstripe suits will say anything!

We are not talking about marketing speak.

GM is a public company with shares traded on Wall Street. If the directors of such a company make statements that are materially incorrect, they face a combination of shareholder lawsuits and criminal prosecution.

If GM says that they will launch driverless cars next year then you can be sure that their board is certain that it will happen. If they were aware of any major problems that might affect their timescales they would be required to warn their shareholders of those issues.

I'd like to see a demo of GM's car @jpoc driving Auckland to Whangamata, in the rain, on a busy weekend in the middle of winter.

Never to Whangamata because the bridge club there refuses to affiliate with NZ Bridge and thus does not run weekend tournaments.

But as long as there is an open tournament on in the destination then sign me up.

Self driving vehicles have been operating in Nevada for almost three years now and they have a safety record that is way better than wetware only vehicles.

I would be confident that I would have a safer ride.

Your previous post with the link (very interesting , thanks) was about autonomous.(No wheel, no pedals)

Your last post was about self drive in Nevada which is not autonomous. Cool and awesome as that truck is, it has humans in it. Its merely a truck with a better and very cool cruise control plus a lot more. Autonomous and self drive are very different beasts, but here we are talking about one then throwing in the other at times

On topic, autonomous vehicles are many many years away. Self Drive is not that far away, as its a human driven car, of a more automated variety.

Cool - but I'll believe it when I see it. Marketing slicks in pinstripe suits will say anything!

We are not talking about marketing speak.

GM is a public company with shares traded on Wall Street. If the directors of such a company make statements that are materially incorrect, they face a combination of shareholder lawsuits and criminal prosecution.

If GM says that they will launch driverless cars next year then you can be sure that their board is certain that it will happen. If they were aware of any major problems that might affect their timescales they would be required to warn their shareholders of those issues.

Again, what are you talking about in this post. Driverless or Self Drive (Autonomous or Self Drive with a human present)

Cool - but I'll believe it when I see it. Marketing slicks in pinstripe suits will say anything!

We are not talking about marketing speak.

GM is a public company with shares traded on Wall Street. If the directors of such a company make statements that are materially incorrect, they face a combination of shareholder lawsuits and criminal prosecution.

If GM says that they will launch driverless cars next year then you can be sure that their board is certain that it will happen. If they were aware of any major problems that might affect their timescales they would be required to warn their shareholders of those issues.

Public companies are no more accurate with their predictions than any others. Tesla is a NASDAQ listed corporation and they seem to routinely miss delivering on things they announce. Don't see their directors facing prosecution.

So GM can put their hands on their hearts and say they will make a deadline but that doesn't and couldn't guarantee it will happen - especially in a project of this nature.

*I* would also have to be confident that your autonomous car wouldn't harm me or my car, whether I was walking or cycling or driving. And of course there's a lot of skeptical, conservative neo-Luddite people out there whose thoughts also need to be considered.

But maybe there's a niche for a small autonomous vehicle (e.g. a largish scooter or golf cart)... light so that if it did make a mistake, it couldn't kill or seriously injure someone. This kind of thing might be useful for an automated courier or lab samples or whatever delivery system, for example.

*I* would also have to be confident that your autonomous car wouldn't harm me or my car, whether I was walking or cycling or driving. And of course there's a lot of skeptical, conservative neo-Luddite people out there whose thoughts also need to be considered.

But maybe there's a niche for a small autonomous vehicle (e.g. a largish scooter or golf cart)... light so that if it did make a mistake, it couldn't kill or seriously injure someone. This kind of thing might be useful for an automated courier or lab samples or whatever delivery system, for example.

Like jpoc I suspect the self drive cars will be safer than the human driven ones. Although they are subject to design errors and software bugs, they are not subject to drunken, incompetent or boy-racer control.

Much of the discussion about self-driving and autonomous is semantics. The six levels within the SAE definition are usually used (SAE J3016). It's fairly obvious that current progress is very rapid ( eg GM and Waymo ), and the initial market will be in situations where driver costs are a significant % of operating costs. Most likely buses, taxis and freight, nor personal or family cars that also have intercity roles.

Once the economics are good, it's expected insurance premiums will be lower than for driven vehicles, making autonomous vehicles very competitive. it's possible some rapid transit lanes would only be for autonomous vehicles. Already firms are remapping transportation routes in higher resolution for the next generation of automous vehicles. I expect them to be common in most major cities within 1 - 2 decades, and driven vehicles consigned to backs roads, just like horse and buggies were. The driving force ( ouch ) will be the much lower operating costs.

*I* would also have to be confident that your autonomous car wouldn't harm me or my car, whether I was walking or cycling or driving. And of course there's a lot of skeptical, conservative neo-Luddite people out there whose thoughts also need to be considered.

But maybe there's a niche for a small autonomous vehicle (e.g. a largish scooter or golf cart)... light so that if it did make a mistake, it couldn't kill or seriously injure someone. This kind of thing might be useful for an automated courier or lab samples or whatever delivery system, for example.

I'd suggest a golf cart running into you at 30kmph is very likely to cause you serious injury.

Certainly the economics would be great, maybe driverless or self drive should be aimed mainly at EV's.

All the tech is there and old for this, its just the ability to manage all the unforeseen scenario's AND to build protection for software failure. Software failure could be managed by redundancy. Two software unites operating independently, one driving, one watching for software failure, where it will replace the other or immediately pull the vehicle over.

Getting around is old. Im not in favour of sole GPS personally, I'd prefer roads were painted with white lines that include tech that the car can easily see, so it drives within the corridor, allowing for crossovers such as intersections, roundabouts, where that uses GPS to follow the map, but the sensor lines keep the car within bounds. Easy. We already have sensors to detect number plates so maybe lenses in traffic and other lights to detect them. Easy. Proximity sensors to keep away from cars ahead, parked cars, fixed items, people, animals. Algorithms to manage every scenario possible. I see all this as easy. But to standardise this, test it, legalise it, tales a lot of time. For autonomous Id biggest 10 years absolute minimum.

Self drive I see no issue to get that up much earlier in numbers as long as it required a fully available driver. Its essentially cruise control plus steering control, plus throttle/brake control, and navigation control, and proximity avoidance control. But why would I buy such a vehicle? I may as well drive it myself as I have to be there. Yes, I could play Juice Jam on my iPad, check FB, check emails, read GZ. I cant see a lot of benefit for me, maybe save a little gas. Maybe get annoyed as it travels at the exact speed limit.

I feel self drive is a solution looking for a problem. Autonomous would be great especially if it was mainly EV as well, but while all the tech is old, it HAS TO BE RIGHT. Not pretty darn awesome, it has to be RIGHT

There are numerous autonomous bus services running in Europe and a few in USA. I think they are not general but tailored to particular routes. Many if not all have human attendants ready to take over in practice.

There was an incident in L.A on the first day of a new service. The autonomous bus detected a truck ahead across the road and stopped. The truck then proceeded to back into the vehicle and hit it. Very minor and no injuries. A human bus driver would have backed up to give the truck more room, or sounded the horn etc. Autonomous vehicle not programmed for that. Truck driver at fault obviously luckily realised the mistake in time.

The edge cases will be the difficult ones. That person standing in the middle of the road, waving their arms about. Are they a drunk teenager, or a Police officer directing traffic? Especially as Police officers can override pretty much any road rules. Say a road is blocked due to an accident, and the police are redirecting traffic the wrong way down a 1 way street. The officer can easily tell a human driver - drive up that street, the police blocking the other end will let you through into the main road. How would a Police officer tell those instructions to the computer in a driverless car?

What about roadworks, where you sometimes get sections of road without any lines painted? Or lots and lots of road cones, all of the cones are the same, but the car has to then figure out their pattern.

Or a simple lane closure at an intersection. With traffic being directed to drive in a bus lane, or left and straight ahead traffic to use the right turn only lane.

And what about when the drunk teenagers figure out how to fool the driverless cars into thinking they are police officers. And they direct the driverless cars into a Wilson's parking building. Meaning the cars are now trapped, as the cars are not fitted a robotic arm to put coins into the payment machine.

And what about when the drunk teenagers figure out how to fool the driverless cars into thinking they are police officers. And they direct the driverless cars into a Wilson's parking building. Meaning the cars are now trapped, as the cars are not fitted a robotic arm to put coins into the payment machine.

By default driverless cars are going to programmed to stop when they sense someone in front of them,

Once the number of autonomous cars rise and pedestrians work this out, I can see inner cities becoming no go zones for autonomous vehicles as people simply walk across roads at will bringing autonomous vehicles to a halt..

And due to their draconian legal system, this is EXACTLY what happens with human drivers in the States already... I was looking to ‘work my way’ through three lanes of traffic at around 9pm after walking to a burger bar near my motel and the moment my foot left the pavement (gap in the closest lane and gaps imminent in the lanes thereafter) EVERY SINGLE CAR in BOTH directions drew to a complete halt and waited till I was completely across the road (hurriedly and hugely embarrassed) before resuming driving again.

They are so scared of being sued that they will completely stop an entire section of road (voluntarily!) if someone (me) even doing something illegal (“J walking”) is anywhere on the road.

I later learned that Jwalking is quite strongly policed and socially reviled.